


no more watchers on the wall

by quillquiver



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x18 coda, Angelic Lore, M/M, Temporary Character Death, because you know THAT SCENE, but I am a romantic, coda fic, musings on cas and love, playing fast and loose with human history and christianity, so romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27516550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillquiver/pseuds/quillquiver
Summary: How laughable that even then, Castiel had known nothing.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 13
Kudos: 127





	no more watchers on the wall

**Author's Note:**

> HOW WE FEELING DESTIEL NATION???? 
> 
> This coda is not tagged MCD because I am 100% that Cas is coming back, but it does end with the Empty taking him, so just be aware of that :) Hope you enjoy!

Love—the concept of it, the feeling—had never been a difficult thing to grasp. Castiel was, after all, willed into being by love. What was he if not an agent of such feeling? What was his grace if not the divine manifestation of it? Castiel understood that love was in listening. In following. In obeying. It was steadfast and absolute.

And so Castiel was steadfast. Castiel was absolute.

He painted stars across the black, empty skies of his Father’s Universe and imbued joy into each one; closed his eyes and smiled as he nudged Pluto into place. Castiel dipped his wings in the stardust of Saturn’s rings and left behind nebulas of startling colour. He meditated between binary stars. Overwhelmed by the hunger and emptiness of the first black hole, he opened his mouth and sang with it.

It was not a burden, to love the Universe his Father created. Castiel walked along the sulphurous, scorched shores of the primordial beach and loved the creature of flesh that hauled itself onto the coarse black sand. He leaned over the very edge of heaven and watched pterodactyls fly and felt his own wings twitch. When God sent a meteor for the dinosaurs, Castiel reassured himself that the subsequent genocide must have been borne of love, too.

Privately, he wondered at this; his insatiable curiosity to know all God’s creatures, to fly to the farthest reaches of the Universe—just to see, to know. His passion outmatched that of his siblings, and among the closest of his kin, he became known for it. Though Castiel was not a Watcher, Uriel joked that he may as well have been—but to be teased by his brother was a privilege, and Castiel loved him, too.

The Neanderthals were poets, and Castiel would spend hours reciting their words of love to himself, over and over, marveling at them. Certainly, there were other creatures who loved and loved deeply, but there was something about _homo neanderthalensis_ —their appreciation for beauty, their seriousness in all things—that Castiel saw reflected in his own self.

But the Neanderthals died, and so Castiel turned to humanity with the rest of Heaven. Waiting. Watching. There were rumours that humanity was the Father’s chosen people, and Castiel wondered briefly, treasonously, at all the creatures who had been casualties His divine search. But Castiel was a being of duty, of _purpose_ —and so he set himself to the task of loving them, too.

God created the Garden.

The Lightbringer became jealous and in his hatred, offered Eve fruit of the Tree. Her own curiosity was too large to bear. This desire—for knowledge, for knowing—Castiel understood, though he kept his thoughts to himself. And as he fought for Michael, as he remained steadfast and absolute, he wondered at the ability of love to twist into something so volatile. Twisted. _Wrong_. He wondered if perhaps both sides weren’t wrong, in that neither cared about the creatures on Earth and the happenings of their little lives; that two brothers were fighting there, too. That one killed the other and was doomed to a life of wandering.

War waged on. Castiel found he was good at killing, when it was in defence of people he loved. Over time, he even began to see it as a mercy; that to take a life was to save his kin from eternal damnation as well as to protect the glory of the Father’s creation. Here, death and love were intertwined. Both righteous. Both absolute. Castiel’s knowledge of all things—the defence strategies of the parasaurolophus, the hunting behaviours of the sabre-toothed tiger—propelled him through the ranks until he became Anna’s right-hand. There was no doubt that, had the war continued, he would have had been named a leader in his own right.

But the war did end, and by the time it had, Earth had flooded for forty days and forty nights.

Castiel watched, despaired, at how the world had changed while he’d been gone. At the violence. The despair. By the time Moses was desperately hidden in a basket and pushed downriver, Castiel turned away from Earth and refused to look upon it again, heartbroken; so much had changed since he’d flown carefree among newborn stars.

Castiel was one of three called upon to slay every Egyptian first born. He was told to take a vessel and protect a boy named David. He’d heard rumours of the Father’s son—born to a human woman named Mary—and grief and joy echoed across Heaven upon Christ’s death at the hands of the Romans. Castiel remained steadfast throughout—dutiful, loyal, with a love for all things humming a baseline in the depths of his heart. He was devotion incarnate; the Father’s will was good and righteous, and he wielded his first children as instruments of love and light. If he couldn’t see the plan right now, it was because he merely did not understand it. Besides, understanding was beyond his purview. Castiel’s only purpose was love of the highest order. Steadfast. Absolute.

Or so he’d thought.

The angels laid siege to Hell for forty years. It was by happenstance that Castiel was the one to find the Righteous Man; twisted and smirking in front of his rack, his soul still shone with the power of a thousand suns. _Be not afraid_ , Castiel had said, reaching out to touch the hurting thing. Like an injured animal, Dean Winchester shied away, and Castiel felt something within himself, something long-since tightened, unravel. _I mean you no harm._

And he’d laid a hand upon the soul of the Righteous Man.

They lost precious time in the single moment of that act—one that lasted a second, an hour, a lifetime. Castiel had no need for breath, and yet he felt breathless in touching this human, this person whose warmth and light, palpable from a distance, was blinding so close. God had lied. Beautiful words about angels as the bringers of love and light—all falsehoods at the feet of his one human being, this righteous man, whose love was so… so steadfast, so _absolute_ it led him to the deepest, darkest hole in the Pit. It had been no hardship to hold Dean Winchester close and fly him out of Hell, to sing for the first time in eons, so loud and clear and joyous it was heard in the Ninth Sphere: _Dean Winchester is saved._

Castiel stitched Dean’s soul back into a body of flesh and bone with all the love he possessed, himself. He’d wanted to be his equal. His kin. He’d wanted to understand how such a man came to be, living in the world as it was today. And so Castiel remade his heart and hands and wondered at how one person could possibly embody so much goodness and grace. So much beauty. For Dean Winchester was comely for a human and that was right, too; that the Righteous Man’s love shone through his skin to make him golden and great.

How laughable that even then, Castiel had known nothing.

He understands, now.

Now, Cas has known heartbreak and elation. He has known despair and joy. And he understands that all of that—the good, the bad, the ugly—all of it is love. That love is not steadfast in itself, but a riot of emotion, and it is the ability to remain steadfast in _spite_ of that that makes it sacred and glorious. That hope and love are irrevocably entwined, and it is in this intersection that humans find true strength. True dignity. That they become something greater than themselves when they are _true_ to themselves.

And so, in a concrete room under the ground, Cas speaks his own truth. He pulls the words from deep within his own heart and lays himself bare not because he must, but because there is strength in it. Happiness in it. Because it is a privilege and an honor and this vulnerability, too, is sacred. For the first time in all the eons of history, an angel confesses to a human man—not because he has doubts, but because he is _sure_. Because he is certain. Because he—a being known for its sameness—has been forever changed by one imperfect, loving human. Because Dean Winchester is love incarnate.

“Cas—”

It’s funny; for all that he has been told he is an abomination, Cas has never felt more holy.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

Cas pushes Dean out of harm’s way and meets the Empty head-on. Ready. Proud. 

And his love is steadfast.

And it is absolute.

**Author's Note:**

> Rebloggable on [tumblr](https://thursdayschild.co.vu/post/634537313137016832/no-more-watchers-on-the-wall).


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